


The Gargoyle

by bulbousalligator



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, BAMF Castiel, BAMF Dean, Dean Winchester Has Issues, Denial of Feelings, Everyone Is Really Fucked Up, Fluff and Angst, Grace Kink, Grief/Mourning, Guard Dean, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Idiots in Love, Multi, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Possessive Castiel, Post Apocalyptic World, Protective Siblings, Psudo Guardian Angel Castiel, Rebellion, Secret Relationship, Soul Bond, Stalker Castiel, Wing Kink, doppelgangers, tribes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 01:53:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bulbousalligator/pseuds/bulbousalligator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For every human, there is an angel double. </p><p>After Castiel’s mate dies in a war, he searches for the only being who could even hope to ease his grief; the human counterpart of his angelic mate. </p><p>He just doesn't expect a man like Dean Winchester to be that human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gargoyle

Living in fear was something that deeply unsettled Dean Winchester. The entire world held nothing but possible horrifying and painful deaths at the hand of creatures that, in his mind, were far more advanced than humans on an evolutionary scale. The sky holds a myriad of beasts, intelligent and otherwise, just itching to swoop in and snatch any form of meat they could sink their claws into. The water held beautiful screeching keens that apparently passed as song, fingers and teeth alike waiting to sink into flesh to drag into the depths. Fighting them off is something Dean could get behind; encouraged violence? Fuck yes. But instead, some long-since bag of bones decided to move humans underground. Tunnel systems that resembled honeycombs more than anything else to live in; the only buildings on land holding anything that would produce anything that could clog lungs, the solar panels that powered these cities, and the systems that gathered and transported the water supply and productions that caused air pollution. All in all, being underground was nothing short of torture. It left a bitter taste in Dean’s mouth and an itching under his skin that refused to ease no matter how many times he tried to scratch it away; this built a growing resentment for this lifestyle that grew and grew as he aged.

            There were obvious signs that humans had lived above ground in the past; ruins of cities and roads clogged with dead cars. According to Sam, who had a habit of stealing books he wasn’t supposed to be reading, humanity had been somewhere in the ‘1970s’ before being forced underground by the creatures in the sky and water. Some things from that life had been brought down and developed to accommodate underground living, but most had been abandoned; like the rows upon rows of dead cars. And those were the things Dean was most interested in: everything that had been left behind. The world that mankind had intended for itself before losing it to stronger and smarter animals. He craved that world, longed for it with every breath and hoped that each step he took would take him closer to open air and ghosts of a long dead people.

            It was only weeks after his fifteenth birthday that Dean first snuck to the surface alone, taking with him only his father’s hunting knife, scraps of an old green blanket he planned to use to mark his path, and whatever food and water he could get his hands on. And if a pack of cigarettes and a flask go missing from a pocket here and there, well...

            Getting to the surface was the easy part, if you knew the right people. Overhearing a conversation and peeking in journals, though, can be just as effective. The guard rotations were found in his father’s journal, seeming to have been copied off something else. The ink was smudged, and the writing more cramped than Dean was used to seeing in his father’s hand, but it was still legible. The code had taken a while to figure out; a mixture of the old alphabets and a numerical system he was unfamiliar with. Honestly, he would have passed over the page if it hadn’t been for the triangle in the left hand corner, half nestled in the crease of the binding.

            Over all, having dedicated all the time he could spare between his lessons and responsibilities, the code was cracked before the month’s end.

            Getting out had been another thing all together. Nearly seen more times than Dean bothered to count, and chased through hall after hall, only just managing to slip into a crevice just this side of too small for the guard to follow.

            Sunshine. It had a distinct taste, something close to contentment rolling lazily around on the tip of his tongue. The feel of it on his skin was addicting. Tiny flames lit under the surface of his skin, warming him to his bones in a way he can only distantly remember from his early childhood. This moment, this first gasp of clear air and taste of sunlight, is the moment Dean Winchester’s path in life shifts. His future reforming, molded into a brand new being; something twisted and horrible in its beauty, and painful to the touch. All the same, there is nothing he would trade this moment for. The first moment of true freedom, because no matter how you dress it, or how you try to work through it, the place that had been called home for as long as he can remember was a prison. One without bars in every doorway, but walls that over ninety percent of the population would never from the outside all the same.

            Hours passed, it must have been well past noon, before he found it. The road, if it could be called that any more. There was little asphalt left; the rusted shells of cars being the only indication of what it had once been.

            Dean had tied a strip of cloth on the lowest branch of a bordering tree before following the rusted line. With a car on each side and hardly a strip of sky to be seen through the foliage he felt no fear, only a lightness in his chest threatening to take him to the skies where the winged beasts would tear him to shreds. He doubts that he would mind all that much.

            It takes far less time to come to the city. By now his feet ache; something he finds easily pushed aside to focus on the feeling of _fresh_ and _new_ and _reborn_ filling his lungs and cleansing him of the years spent breathing dirt and dust.

            The skeletons of the buildings could be seen, rusted of the cars had been, but infinitely sadder. Infinitely more exciting. Here he was almost always in the open, treading carefully along the torn up and grass covered streets, marking his path as he passed.

            It was after climbing over a car pileup that he found it. Half of the building had been crushed from falling debris of its neighbour, but it was his favourite. It looked ancient, with its crumbling pillars and worn down moldings and statues. This is the building he slept in that night, curled up a room he’d had to wriggle into for the tiny gap that remained of its doorway. With his pack as his pillow, and a spot cleared of clutter for a bed, Dean smoked his first cigarette and drank his first swigs of whiskey. That night, Dean was a man. A man that he crafted from the twisting beams and rubble and all else long since turned to dust who refused to life in fear any more.  

After Sam’s fifteenth birthday, Dean will take him to the city to pick his own building, watch him smoke his first cigarette and drink his first swigs of whiskey.

            It would be many years after this day before Dean would feel this special brand of content exhilaration again. 

**Author's Note:**

> And here's the fic that I've been neglecting my other one for.  
> (This is the only chapter this short so far; out of the five that I have written)


End file.
